Suki's Safe Haven is exactly what it sounds like - a safe place for victims of veterinary incompetence, negligence, and abuse to obtain information about this disturbing but important subject. It's a companion site to The Veterinary Abuse Network, which grew out of a site founded in 2000 in memory of Suki the Cat, REPEATEDLY MISTREATED BY EDWARD J NICHOLS DVM, CRESTWAY ANIMAL CLINIC, San Antonio, and to alert the public of serious flaws in state board systems that routinely look the other way to protect the vets - and not our pets. You'll find original posts and articles as well as links to victims' stories, resources, other sites and blogs, and media coverage from all over the net. We'll also cover First Amendment issues for those of us who have been sued by the very veterinarians who mistreated our pets and then used the legal system in an attempt to silence us.

We will never forget. We will never be silenced.

This is an independent consumer advocacy blog and not associated with any government agency in any way.

April 26, 2019


 1999-2019

20 YEARS AND COUNTING 

20 years of consumer advocacy for veterinary victims everywhere

With a lot of help from our friends! 

 

April 26, 2019--If anyone had told me in 1999 that I would be typing this 20 years in the future, I would have told them they were crazy. 

What I didn't know at that time was that the crazy hadn't even begun. 

Yes, Suki was hideously mistreated to death by "Dr" Ed Nichols, Crestway Animal Clinic, who on April 19, 1999 pushed a collapsed, v. dehydrated cat already in multiple organ shutdown from chronic renal failure (no chart note) into acute renal failure from which there is little chance of return, using dangerous anesthesia to perform an unauthorized surgery, pumping her with steroids, and leaving her alone, dying, in a cage without a word to me.
 
Suki defied him by keeping herself alive for another week.
That was my first lesson in what happens to those who make the huge mistake of defying a toxic and irredeemable BadVet--in this case a monster--who thinks the world and everyone in it is his to control. My second lesson in the dangers of standing up to a BadVet was when I went to get Suki's complete medical record and Nichols went completely bonkers--screaming, stomping, attacking, threatening, red faced and enraged. As my attorney said afterwards, laughing, when I relayed the actions of this lunatic, "The guy knows how much trouble he's in."

But the real portal to Hell was in Austin, the summer of 2000, where consummate liar Nichols got away with every single act of unspeakable negligence--with a little help from his friend and fellow BadVet Martin E. Garcia who deliberately ignored every piece of evidence of malpractice including "records" that were as pathetic and deficient as Nichols is. (Happily, Garcia no longer has a Texas vet license, having been caught in some controlled substance recordkeeping "issues" that spanned multiple years. And even after his big win at escaping all accountability for Suki's death by lying and his absolutely useless records, Nichols threatened me again in the lobby on the way out ("You just keep trying").

So I did.Through a three year abusive SLAPP suit thanks to monster (and loser) Ed Nichols.

And I am. Almost every day, reading and answering email, posting, researching. 

And I always will. I owe Suki that much, for trusting a monster who abused that trust. 

With time and technology, vet victims of veterinary malpractice, incompetence, negligence and abuse, hundreds of them, started to find one another. Long before there was social media, there were websites, blogs, message boards, support groups, email, and always the telephone where we could keep one another company through years (yes, years) of torturous insomnia and soul-crushing stress. I recall all-night talks and tears with other early victims, trying to figure out how and why professional "animal lovers" could commit these atrocities, until we realized that they were able to do so with the help of state vet boards and their own professional organizations dedicated to keeping these killers on the streets without one thought to the families they tore apart--first with the killings, and then with the lies.

Yes, a lot has happened in 20 years--way too much for a blog post. This doesn't even scratch the surface. But I tried. 

What will the next two decades bring? Who knows. Nowdays, I must move much faster just to stay in one place and still dodge the torrent of lies by emotionally arrested crybabies who were apparently taught that any criticism is defamatory, negative reviews are "false" reviews, the emotions of a vet take precedence over the health and well being of a pet, and the bruised egos of spiteful, malicious and entitled liars are reason enough to do whatever needed to inflict as much pain, grief and loss as they deem necessary. And it's still not enough to satisfy these bottomless bins of trash disguised as humans and "doctors."


Along with the wholesale abuse of public trust on a massive scale by deliberately manipulating suicide statistics to mislead people into believing that vets are killing themselves bigger, better, faster and more often than any other profession, BadVets are now on a quest to make their own clients responsible for the mental health of these overgrown brats who are so very valuable, fragile and special that any criticism (now rebranded as bullying) could drive them to kill themselves and it will never be their fault because nothing ever is--not even their own suicides.

Meanwhile, as the narcissists, babies, whiners and criers console one another over their "plight," the unending loss of pet life at the hands of soulless monsters continues, and a hopelessly out-of-date profession scrambles to maintain its toxic control over a public that just wants their animals treated ethically and humanely without having to make sure that their vets are happy and getting extra plates of ego pellets at Christmas. 

There is no doubt that the ability of vet victims to communicate with one another and the public is the BadVet's worst nightmare. Good. No sympathy here. Now it's their turn to commiserate with one another and their "professional" organizations about how to regain control of an archaic world that is gone forever and they are just too stupid to recognize it. How ironic that these brilliant scientists and "doctors" apparently are completely unaware of the basic tenet of evolution: Adapt or die. 

Maybe the poor dears thought that didn't apply to them, you know, what with being so special and all. 

Thank you to everyone who has been such an incredible source of support, to me, to one another, and to a cause that we all hope brings an end to the suffering of innocent pets at the hands of BadVets.  

The story continues...


--Julie Catalano and Angel Suki
April 26, 2019